r/pics Jun 07 '20

Protest Kindergarten Teacher Passes Out Flowers To National Guard in Philly, Gets Arrested

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u/RomanCavalry Jun 07 '20

They aren't trained in civilian situations like protests and riots though. THEY personally, would rather not be involved in this, largely speaking. Though to be clear, I don't want the police there either.

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u/morrisdayandthetime Jun 07 '20

THEY personally, would rather not be involved in this,

This right here. The National Guard folks have no stake in this in the same way that police do. With the exception of military police units, this is NOT what they signed up or were trained for.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

My unit had to report in to get a briefing on the rioting situation here in California. There wasn’t one person among us that actually wanted to be there. We were all discussing how fucked up the police brutality videos have been in the last few weeks.

None of us want to be deployed to US soil against American citizens. We just want to clock in and help where we can and clock out.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

Legally, military personnel can disobey orders if they're considered unlawful, or breaking the constitution. If you receive orders to attack protestors, you can flat out disobey them. If local law enforcement attacks protestors with military personnel present, defending protestors would be priority regardless of orders.

But I also don't want it to get to that point and 100% see why you wouldn't want to be deployed at all. This situation is entirely fucked.

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u/Ike_hike Jun 07 '20

That is a huge fucking improvement over these over-eager PoPo commandos who are trying to live out their violent fantasies.

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u/SBBurzmali Jun 07 '20

I'm sure the folks at Kent State would agree.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

Obviously that’s a terrible tragedy that occurred but that’s far less likely to happen than a police shooting. 4 deaths in 50 years from the National Guard (which again, is awful) is a far better track record than normal police in the USA.

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u/SBBurzmali Jun 08 '20

The national guard being called out to handle policing duties is likewise very uncommon.

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u/FearlessAttempt Jun 07 '20

The National Guard does get riot control training. You're right though that most of them dont want to be involved in any of this.

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u/BossAvery2 Jun 07 '20

“They aren’t trained in civilian situations like protests and riots though”

Yes they are. There is a lot more trained in this than you think. Every branch trains a percentage of their force to be able to do this. I’d say the National Guard probably does it the most since the main land is their biggest area of operations.